


Finally

by theemdash



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5+1 Things, Almost Kiss, First Kiss, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Pining, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22700047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theemdash/pseuds/theemdash
Summary: Five times Poe and Finn very nearly kissed and one time they finally got to;OR Poe Dameron Really Wants to Make Out With Finn, Please Let Him;OR Finn is obvious and Poe is kind of an idiot who is really wrapped up in pining.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 18
Kudos: 288





	Finally

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [sopdetly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sopdetly) and [jedimara77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedimara77) for checking canon compliancy on the scene I (for some damn reason) decided to set within a section of _The Rise of Skywalker_ I didn't really remember.

Finn's weight against Poe's shoulder was better than a warm blanket. Over the last few months they'd taken to sleeping in shifts like this. Sitting on the floor of cargo bays, crowded around the Falcon's holochess table like they were now, slouched against each other, certain the other one would alert them to danger, protect them from harm, keep them safe. Poe used to sometimes sleep in his X-Wing, but now he could barely shut his eyes if Finn wasn't beside him, or at least near him. It happened sometime after Corellia, but Poe couldn't put a finger on exactly when Finn had become not just important, but essential.

Finn sighed in his sleep and then inhaled sharply and startled awake. He sat up, the guilty look back on his face, and mumbled an apology.

Poe smiled, the warm, soft one he reserved for Finn in just these moments: when the Falcon was quiet, and they had two meters of potential privacy.

"Don't know why you're apologizing."

Finn pulled a face that shifted into a matching soft smile. "Think I drooled on you."

"On my jacket?" In his sudden alarm, he realized Finn was conning him. "Hey." He drew out the word, long and slow, falling a little bit more in love with Finn's mischievous smile. Poe doubted stormtroopers played many practical jokes on each other, so he suspected every joke Finn pulled on him was something new. It was new for Poe, too—enjoying being the butt of so many jokes.

Finn wiped the imaginary drool from the umber leather, eyes still meeting Poe's gaze in a way that caught Poe's breath.

"All better," Finn whispered.

His face was so close to Poe's now. His lips were barely parted from his words, mouth soft and relaxed. A few inches and Poe could be kissing him. Finn's body was still half pressed against Poe from while he'd slept. The only line delineating where each of them ended was the stark contrast of Finn's cream tunic against Poe's muddy-brown jacket. Poe would hardly need to move. Could slide his hand up Finn's arm and lean in, telegraphing his intent to give Finn a chance to pull away if Poe had been reading this all wrong.

His fingertips brushed Finn's wrist.

Finn's lips further parted in a breath.

"Sirs!"

Threepio's tinny voice startled them both out of their skin, and for a brief second Finn's fingers touched Poe's palm, and Poe had an entirely different distraction. "You asked me to alert you when we were coming out of lightspeed."

"Right!" Poe said, voice too tight and too bright to sound at all natural. "Thanks. Thank you, Threepio. Good helping there."

"Right," Finn chimed in. "Very helpful. Nice work."

"I aim to be of service." Threepio nodded briskly and continued to stare at them. Not leaving. 

Poe's eyes slid to Finn, who was intent on Threepio still and definitely not about to kiss Poe. "I should—" Poe said, sliding around the side of the holochess table.

"Right, I said I would—" Finn said, sliding in the opposite direction.

When there was a breadth a space between them and the cool air rushed in, fully separating them, Poe looked back at Finn and swallowed down all his feelings. There'd be time, he promised himself.

* * *

Blaster fire lit the clouded sky around them. Poe locked his arm around the Falcon's ramp strut, lifting off his feet with the sudden roll Rey used to evade the enemy fire.

"Hey! We're still out here!" Finn's voice muffled into his breathing mask, not that Rey could have heard him either way.

"Hang on, pal." Poe wrestled his blaster from its holster, firing at the TIE chasing them. It was ineffectual, yeah, but damn, it made him feel better. Too many missions with too many close calls, but that was the nature of verifying the intel from a First Order spy. 

"I am!" Finn yelled, both arms latched tightly around the ramp as the Falcon took another wild turn.

They’d made a hasty mid-air handoff, a data chip transferring from one ship to the other. Poe of course had volunteered to be the one hanging out of an in-flight cargo ship, and Finn had backed him up because these days Finn always backed him up. 

It was charming, even when they were about to die.

A blaster bolt whizzed past the open ramp and the whole Falcon shook. Poe lost his blaster and his balance, his grip slipping on the cloud condensation that had gathered on the strut. 

Airborn. 

Feet knocked out from under him. 

Hands scrambling for a hold. 

Stars, he'd thought he'd die in a cockpit.

His arm yanked—an anchor—and he instinctively grabbed, fingers latching around leather. Finn.

Finn’s straining face, one arm hooked around the landing strut Poe had abandoned, the other tethered to Poe. Poe grabbed Finn's arm with both hands, pulling himself along, grabbing Finn’s jacket, swinging his body and fumbling his feet onto the ramp beside Finn. 

Finn's hold shifted around Poe’s waist, making room for him against the strut. Poe latched on to the strut like Finn, both of them holding on and holding each other. The TIE roared past them, another blistering round of fire passing too close for comfort, but Poe barely recognized the barrage, body pressed against Finn's, Finn's arm holding him close, their face masks touching, exhausted breath fogging the plastic between them.

Finn's mouth formed Poe's name, but he couldn't hear it over the atmosphere rushing past them.

 _Stars,_ he'd thought he'd die in a cockpit.

The Falcon banked again, and this time they stumbled up the ramp. Up. Yes, good, safety.

"Go, go," Poe yelled, pushing Finn farther up the ramp, and this time they succeeded at getting inside, and Poe sealed the ramp behind them. He ripped off his breathing mask, wanting nothing more than to be in Finn's arms again, to grab him and kiss him with all the adrenaline pumping through Poe's body, but Rey's voice filled the Falcon. 

"Someone get on the guns!"

They both ran, one for the lower turret and one for the upper. It could wait, Poe thought. This thing with Finn—it could wait.

* * *

"The new package of intel is mostly about.... _you._ " Finn's voice went funny in the middle, dragging through the vowels until he landed on his final word.

Poe turned to face Finn, still pulling a shirt over his head. He'd gone back to the bunk they technically shared for a fresh change of clothes, and wound up in the refresher while Finn and Rey worked with Artoo on the data chip. "Intel about me?"

When Poe's face emerged, Finn's eyes flicked up to meet it, his cheeks adorably flushed. Poe resisted the urge to wink at him, but he did arch an eyebrow and repeat his question.

"Yeah. I mean, no. I mean—" Finn shook his head, and then his eyes flicked back down to Poe's chest. "You ever take that thing off?"

The non sequitur had Poe blushing and confused, worse when he realized the necklace with his mom's ring was hanging outside his shirt collar. "Uh, not really?"

That wasn't quite true. He hadn't worn it for years, too afraid it'd be taken if he got captured, or blown up in one of his starfighters because—as Leia had pointed out—he didn't have a great track record of returning home in the same ship he'd left in.

But in the last year he couldn't stand the thought of being without it. It was the one symbol that bridged his past and his future, a single hope that their fight against the First Order might end and he might one day be happy with… someone.

"Must be important." 

The quiet observation cut through Poe in a powerful way, and he felt the words on his lips, explaining whose ring it was and whose ring it would one day be—specifically whose ring he _hoped_ it would be—but he couldn't say that, couldn't say any of that, because they were still on the run and while Poe had hope for a future, confessing all of it might burn some of that hope to ash.

"It was my mother's," he said, scooping it up to tuck it away, but Finn stopped his hand. Stopped his hand and lifted the ring between two careful fingers.

He turned it in the light, and Poe felt the thin chain connecting them. He felt his feelings for Finn transferring through the silver and confessing everything in pulses more confident than words. He felt loud compared to the white noise of the Falcon, which seemed to have fallen away as his every sense funneled down to Finn examining his mother's ring.

"I like it," Finn said. He set it carefully against Poe's chest, two fingers resting lightly against the metal. "I like that you keep her close."

Poe's voice caught in his throat, and he had no idea how he managed to redirect his thoughts to say, "She was a pilot too. A-wing was her bird. Never felt quite as comfortable in one as an X-Wing."

Finn's smile turned a little crooked. "You miss it?" His fingers lifted away from Poe's chest in a self-conscious curl. "I mean, you've been flying around with us for a few months. You miss Black Squadron?"

The way he asked, the subtle way his eye contact detached from Poe, how his hand still hovered in a loose fist between them, Poe had a feeling Finn wasn't asking if Poe missed Black Squadron so much as if he regretted signing on to this gig—to confirming intel from a spy and riding in the Falcon instead of flying it because, yeah, even Poe could admit it, Rey was better at handling her.

"Starfighters are in my blood." He chuckled softly, but wished Finn was still touching his chest. "Probably literally, considering how much sharpnel I've taken. But the Resistance needs me here." He tilted his head, chasing Finn's line of sight. " _I_ need to be here."

"You're sure?"

Poe's heart skipped into his throat. "Very."

Finn’s hand uncurled, confidence settling over his uncertainty. Poe bit his lip and then stilled, not wanting to push, willing to wait, just wanting to be wherever Finn would meet him.

Which was hopefully at their mouths pressing desperately together.

The ship rocked as the white noise of the hyperdrive cut out. Chewie's roar filled the bunk room.

Finn exhaled. Poe hung his head.

"The hyperdrive," they said together.

It wasn't a kiss, but their synchronicity still made Poe smile. "You go, I'm right behind you." Poe tucked away his mother's ring and grabbed for his jacket. Finn's hand wrapped around his and their eyes met. 

A wild moment before Finn spoke, Poe was _certain_ this was the moment, but then Finn said, "I still need to tell you about the intel packet."

"Right," Poe said, feeling his cheeks heating. "We can talk while we work."

Finn nodded and released Poe's hand, thankfully leaving ahead of Poe so he could have just a second to groan before following after Finn.

* * *

Leaving Rey behind was frustrating for so many reasons.

One, the Falcon did _not_ like Poe. That had nothing to do with his flying ability as compared to Rey, just that the Falcon didn't like him. She was sluggish whenever Poe was at the helm, and perked right up if ever Chewie took over, so it was Poe. She didn't like Poe.

Two, if Rey wasn't on board, that meant Poe had to fly. If Poe had to fly, that meant he was spending less time with Finn. 

Which, three, also meant he wasn't sleeping. Or at least not well. Because when they couldn't prop against each other, they took turns in their shared bunk. Which Poe guessed was better than one of them taking Rey's bunk, since at least the pillow smelled like Finn while he dozed, but it wasn't the same as having Finn's reassuring weight against him.

Stars, he needed a few good hours of sleep.

He trudged into the shared bunk and dropped his jacket on the bed before realizing Finn was already occupying the single mattress. How the hell had he not remembered it was Finn's turn for the bunk?

"Sorry," Poe muttered, taking his jacket back, but Finn tiredly tugged on the opposite end of it.

"Your turn?" he mumbled. Finn's arm crossed his face, the ambient light from the hall illuminating his features. Finn looked as tired as Poe felt.

"Honestly, I don't even know." Poe chuckled, an exhausted giddiness creeping into his laugh. 

"You're not sleeping."

Poe took a deep breath, and this time when he pulled his jacket away, Finn let him have it. "Not so much. But I don't think any of us really are. There's too much on the line." Poe tossed his jacket on the shelf on top of Finn's.

"All the more reason to get some sleep."

"Yeah." Poe crushed the heel of his palm into his eye. "I can crash in the other bunk—"

Finn's hand caught Poe's wrist and he pulled. "Get down here, Poe."

"Poe?" Poe stupidly asked, blinking and confused. The confusion didn't clear even when Finn rolled to one side and scooted back, obviously making room for Poe.

"Poe," Finn said, his voice suddenly much more awake, and with a confidence that tickled the part of Poe's brain that still knew how to take orders. He climbed into bed next to Finn, a flutter in his chest the only part of him registering how stupid this was.

Finn flicked the blankets over them. His mouth twitched in a smile. Poe would trade a week of sleep for that smile.

"Thanks," Poe breathed. Hardly any space separated them, but they weren't really touching—just heat transferring between two bodies and the implication that they could touch, if either of them were brave enough to make a move. 

He sat still for a moment, trying not to move, trying to just enjoy being welcomed to share a bed with Finn. But the blanket wasn't really sitting right, so he reached to his shoulder and fumbled for it, trying to tug it up, and then that motion made his shirt sleeve roll to form an uncomfortable lump under his arm, and then the pillow was too flat under his neck.

In a moment they were both shifting and jostling, adjusting blankets, pillows, and positions, both of them reshaping their half of the narrow bed. 

It was inevitable Finn's elbow would wind up in Poe's face, but it was still a shock when it happened.

"Oh, Poe!" 

"I'm fine," Poe said, clutching his nose so that his voice was a nasal muffle. "It's fine." He pulled his hand away—no blood—but it was still tender. “I’m not crooked, am I?”

He hadn't thought it was a joke, but Finn burst out laughing, rolled back, shoulder banging into the wall, and then laughed harder. "Oh, man, I thought I was so smooth. 'You're not sleeping,'" he mocked himself and then dissolved into desperate giggles.

Ah, laughing at himself. Poe could relate. 

Poe rolled forward, grinning into the pillow. "I'm the one who climbed into bed. Like I don't know this bunk is too small for us."

"Like you don't know? Like I don't know!" Finn laughed again, shaking his head. "Couple of idiots."

"Couple of something," Poe said. He pushed his hand through his hair, careful of where he put his elbow. He caught himself grinning at the care he was now taking—should have taken a little more care a few minutes ago, but maybe he could blame sleep deprivation. Or Finn deprivation. They'd probably both needed that laugh.

Finn put his hand on the mattress, resting it in the thin space between them. "Sorry I elbowed you."

Poe scrunched up his face; the sting was finally fading. "If I bruise, we'll say we were sparing."

"Deal."

A sudden yawn took Poe by surprise, and he rolled his face into the pillow to stifle it, the exhaustion pulling on his limbs and eyelids. As nice as it was laughing with Finn, he had to admit, "I really do need some rack time."

"I can let you have the bunk." Finn made to move, though Poe wasn't sure where he thought he was going. 

"You're here. We're… mostly comfortable." He half shrugged around a laugh, heart emboldened when Finn snickered at his joke, too. Going with the impulsive feeling, he reached out and covered Finn's hand, still lying on the mattress between them. "Stay."

Poe felt the pause between breaths. Measured the distance between their faces in molecules. The unspoken question was now Poe inviting Finn to bed, asked with the touch of Finn's hand under Poe's palm and what Poe meant by that. Clear. Sure. Without fail. Poe's intent fully heard for once.

Finn's brown eyes shone in the lowlight, uncertainty sparking through them, and he parted his lips, but didn't have the chance to say anything before klaxons sounded through the whole Falcon.

"What now?" Finn snapped.

Poe squinted against the noise (trying not to verbally curse the timing) and rolled to his back and then off the bed, catching himself before he fell. "Back to work."

Finn held up a hand as he scooted across the bed. "No, no. I got it. Get some sleep. If it's something Chewie and I can't handle…." Finn shrugged and then knocked his knuckle under Poe's chin. His eyes flicked down and then back up to Poe's face. "We need you fresh." 

It took Poe a second to get his voice to work, and even then all he could say was, _"Oh."_

Finn pulled on a jacket as Poe recovered, and then winked at Poe. "I'll catch you later, Dameron." As he exited, Poe realized Finn had taken his jacket, slid his broad shoulders inside and pulled on the lapels. It hadn't been a mistake. He'd swiped Poe's jacket on purpose.

Poe had to sit. He had to sit for a long time. Finn _was_ smooth.

* * *

He had hoped they wouldn't run into her. Zorii represented so much of his past—a past he mostly wanted to forget, filled with bad decisions he'd made while he'd still been figuring himself out. (Though certain recent mutinous actions would suggest he was still figuring himself out.) Seeing her wasn't bad, and they immediately fell into familiar friendly patterns, but he hadn't wanted Finn to find out about his past like that. He'd wanted to tell him. Eventually.

Maybe. 

Probably.

"Finally a quiet moment, huh?" Finn's voice, quiet in the quiet night while they waited for Babu Frik to work his magic, felt inevitable, even though Poe had thought he was alone.

"That what this is? It's loud in here." Poe tapped his temple.

"Is it?" Finn's fingers brushed Poe's hair, curling around his ear. The intimate touch tickled all the way down Poe's side, melting him like ice on Jakku. "Got a lot on your mind?" His voice suddenly hardened: "Like how you were a spice runner and never told me?"

Well, that froze all of Poe's pleasant feelings.

"I, I didn't—I mean, it didn't come up." He could feel the flush climbing his throat, his chest tightening with shame. He hadn't expected the trip to Kijimi would remind him so much of all the ways he'd failed, but here it was again. He'd failed his parents by running off to Kijimi. He'd failed Zorii by succumbing to his guilt. He'd failed Leia by ignoring her commands. And then again by not trusting Vice Admiral Holdo. And he'd nearly lost the entire Resistance because—

"Poe." Finn's fingers pressed against his shoulder, thumb coming across his collar bone, every point of contact deliberate and grounding. "Would've been nice to hear it from you, but it's all right. Kind of nice to learn you're not perfect."

"Not—?" Poe laughed, relieved by Finn's grin and the way he'd refocused and then defused Poe's escalating spiral. "You've witnessed a lot of my imperfection."

Finn shrugged. "Didn't look imperfect to me. Looked like a man doing what he thought was right. Which is what you _do_ , Dameron." His brown eyes bore into Poe, fixing him with Finn's assessment of Poe's mutinous actions, maybe even absolving him for all the wrongs Finn didn't yet know about but that still spotted Poe's past. He had Finn's unwavering support, whether or not Poe felt like he deserved it.

"How can you—?" Poe started to ask, but Finn gave him a lopsided look. 

Okay, yes, Finn was a former stormtrooper and Poe had immediately trusted him. And then Poe had defended him and vouched for him without knowing anything else about him. Maybe Poe knew exactly how Finn could because Poe already had.

The recognition must have colored Poe's expression because Finn smiled softly, and then leaned his forehead against Poe's. "We're a pair," Finn whispered.

Poe put his hands on Finn's waist, sneaking past the leather jacket to rest against Finn's tunic, feeling the audacity of that movement in his sweating palms. "I'm good with that," he whispered back. His eyes flicked up, trying to read Finn's intentions, but they were too close now and all Poe could really see was Finn's lips.

He could kiss him—he _should_ kiss him, shouldn’t he? They'd had so many other near misses and surely Finn wouldn't have touched him, leaned their foreheads together, continued to stand so closely that they were basically sharing breath if he hadn't thought kissing was a possibility.

He shifted, fingers pressing against Finn's side, screwing up his bravery to tell Finn unequivocally how he felt.

"Don't let me interrupt." Zorii's dry voice startled them apart, leaving enough space for her to pass between them. "Thought you were keeping watch up here." Zorii's helmet bobbed at Poe and he could imagine the wry smirk on her face, but he was a different man from the one she'd known.

"I was," he said, all confidence. "But—"

"I should check in with Rey," Finn interrupted. His eyes flicked to Zorii and then back to Poe. "We'll uh, finalize that later."

Poe blinked because he couldn't think of anything else to say. He wanted to grab Finn and kiss him right there, in front of Zorii and anyone else who wandered in because how could Finn be that adorable and awkward all at once?

"Think it'll keep?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah," Finn said, nodding briskly. "It'll keep." His eyes flicked up and down Poe before he turned and headed back downstairs.

Poe faced Zorii's blank helmet, her arms across her chest, everything in her posture smug. "Oh shut up, I don't kiss all my teammates." She didn't say anything, but then Zorii didn't need to and, honestly, Poe wouldn't have cared what she said.

* * *

Home.

Poe hadn’t felt the meaning of the word in a long time. The Resistance had been on the run too long, chased planet to planet, leaving a wake of dead or endangered friends behind them. But now there was hope. Not just for the galaxy, but hope for individuals. For Poe. For Finn.

That hope surged through Poe when he leapt from his X-wing and hit the deck. It was the thing that carried him through celebrating comrades and friends, ducking and dodging and slapping backs and separating from embraces as he kept searching for the Falcon and Finn. Where was that rogue?

Poe's shouted name sounded like a beacon in the black of space, and every nerve jangling inside of Poe settled as he turned and saw Finn, a big deal in the Resistance, a former stormtrooper, and the most amazing man Poe knew. 

Joy and relief surged through Poe as they hugged, a wild feeling that counterbalanced the black despair he'd felt in his starfighter before the reinforcements arrived as his friends sacrificed themselves in a battle he thought they'd lose. But Finn's arms were safety and certainty, the home Poe had lost and the promise of a home he hoped to find again.

Poe pressed his face into the leather of Finn's jacket, inhaling deeply and drinking in his relief. His fingers wrapped Finn's neck, holding him in place, promising to never let him go. 

"Poe," Finn whispered.

Even though it was just his name, Poe understood what the warmth in Finn's voice meant because he felt the same way.

He whispered Finn's name in return, letting him know _yes, finally_.

Finn mirrored Poe's movements, a smile breaking out over his beautiful face as they leaned together and finally kissed.


End file.
